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Banning smartphones from classrooms may do more harm than good, a new study suggests.

Last year, the Department of Education's discipline tsar Tom Bennett began a wide-ranging inquiry to see how schools could improve behaviour, which included looking at whether students should be stopped from bringing handsets into lessons.

But a new study found that students are now so addicted to their mobiles that removing them causes high enough levels of anxiety to impact learning and possibly grades.

Researchers in Singapore asked 87 undergraduates aged between 18 and 29 to take part in tests which monitored their cognitive function, with or without their smartphone.

They found that students who had their phone removed before the task scored on average 17 per cent points lower on working memory than those who were allowed to hold on to their phones, even if they just kept the phone in their pocket. It also hindered reaction times in switching between tasks.

The researchers conclude that smartphone addiction is now so prevalent among young people that teachers should allow ‘technology breaks’ so that users can check messages and social networks to allay the fear that they are missing out.

The government's school behaviour tsar has organised a review on whether to ban smartphones

First author Andree Hartanto, of the Singapore Management University in Singapore said: “A blanket restriction on smartphones in school is likely to be more harmful than beneficial, because smartphone separation triggers anxiety that, in turn, adversely affects students’ cognitive functioning.

“Moreover, a long period of smartphone separation may induce even greater desire to use it and engender emotional problems and poorer cognitive regulation, all of which would lower the quality of classroom learning.

“Instead of banning smartphones entirely, allowing periodic technology breaks—during which students are allowed to use their smartphones—may lower their anxiety and thus be more effective in helping students regulate smartphone use and overcome their fear of missing out.”

But despite 90 per cent of teenagers owning mobile phones there is currently no government policy about their use in England, and schools have to set restrictions themselves.

Sir Michael Wilshaw has called for smartphones to be banned in secondary schools

Teachers are concerned that growing numbers of pupils are distracted by their mobile devices when they should be concentrating on their work and the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has also called for smartphones to be banned in secondary schools.

One third of schools ban mobile phones outright, with a further fifth limiting their use in lessons, the Department for Education said.

GCSE results at the Ebbsfleet Academy in Kent have almost doubled since the school banned smartphones in 2013.

The White Horse Federation of seven primary schools in Swindon also bans mobile phones during the school day in order to improve pupil behaviour